Joseph C. Mazur (born in the

Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

in 1942) is Professor Emeritus of

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Marlboro College Marlboro College was a private college in Marlboro, Vermont. Founded in 1946, it remained intentionally small, operating as a self-governing community with students following self-designed degree plans culminating in a thesis. In 1998, the colle ...

, in

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (PMI, now separate from Altria) in most global territories outside the ...

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

. He holds a B.S. from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

, where he first studied

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

. He spent his junior year in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, studying mathematics in classes with

Claude Chevalley Claude Chevalley (; 11 February 1909 – 28 June 1984) was a French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry, class field theory, finite group theory and the theory of algebraic groups. He was a found ...

and

Roger Godement Roger Godement (; 1 October 1921 – 21 July 2016) was a French mathematician, known for his work in functional analysis as well as his expository books. Biography Godement started as a student at the École normale supérieure in 1940, where he ...

and returned to Pratt to earn a B.S. in mathematics. From there he went directly to

M.I.T The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sci ...

to receive his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in mathematics (

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

) in 1972. He has held a visiting scholar position at M.I.T and several visiting professor positions at The Mathematics Institute of the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

. In 2006 he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

for work on mathematical narrative. In 2008 he was awarded a Bellagio Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 2009 was elected to Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011, 2013, and 2019 he was awarded Bogliasco Fellowships. Since 1972 he has taught all areas of mathematics, its

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He has authored many educational software programs, including Explorations in

Calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

, the first interactive, multimedia CD package of simulations for calculus. He is the author of several mathematics books that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He is also interested in

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

. He is the brother of

Barry Mazur Barry Charles Mazur (; born December 19, 1937) is an American mathematician and the Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University. His contributions to mathematics include his contributions to Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in ...

Bibliography

* ''Euclid In the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math'', Plume, 2005 (Finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction).
''The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year-Old Puzzle Behind All The Mysteries of Time and Space''
Dutton, 2007. * ''Number: The Language of Science'' (Ed.) Plume, 2005. * ''What's Luck Got to Do with It? The History, Mathematics and Psychology of the Gambler's Illusion'', Princeton, 2010. * ''Enlightening Symbols: A Short History of Mathematical Notation and Its Hidden Powers'', Princeton, 2014. * ''Fluke: The Maths and Myths of Coincidences'', London: Oneworld Publications. 2016. * ''The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time'', Yale University Press, 2020.

References

External links

Homepage of Joseph MazurJoseph Mazur at Marlboro College
* American non-fiction writers 1942 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century American Jews American science journalists 21st-century American Jews {{US-mathematician-stub